It`s Easy To Fall For Love Story In Romantic `Room`

April 04, 1986|By Gene Siskel.

The one category of film that has been the most underutilized in the last 15 years is the love story. That`s so shocking, because if there is one type of film that the mass audience hungers for it is the love story. Who of adult age doesn`t want to be swept away into the thrill of it all?

Some seekers of romance found it, they say, in Sydney Pollack`s ``Out of Africa.`` More than one report of a sniffle or two, if not open weeping, at that film has reached this office.

And yet a little, independent film called ``A Room with a View,`` a picture without big-name stars, is far more accurate about the thrill of the love first felt, the sweet torture of love denied and the joy of love experienced.

Based on an E.M. Forster novel, ``A Room with a View`` is also a rich comedy of Victorian English manners, and the proper amusements are all in place and funny indeed.

But the focus of the independent filmmaking team of writer Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, director James Ivory and producer Ismail Merchant is on the more serious, more questioning aspects of the characters` lives.

And what a cast of characters! ``A Room with a View`` is the story of young, virginal Lucy Honeychurch (Forster does have a way with names) and her chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett (Maggie Smith), who takes Miss Lucy away from her stately country home in England on a vacation to Florence--just the sort of educational trip a young woman coming of age needs.

However, the education that is intended for the beautiful Lucy (Helena Bonham Carter) is not the one received. Instead of looking at statues, Lucy`s eye is drawn to an animated young man, George Emerson. He is vacationing in Florence with his feisty father (Denholm Elliott), who cannot bear the tentative, polite ways of English society.

For example, upon hearing that Lucy and Mrs. Bartlett don`t have a room with a view of the river Arno, Mr. Emerson offers them his, pleading with them to take it and not stand on ceremony, refusing even though they want it.

The scene in which this confrontation takes place is among the very first in the movie, and it holds the key to the film`s serious side. What Mr. Emerson is pleading for is for Lucy and Mrs. Bartlett--for all of English society--to drop its artifice and concentrate on its legitimate passion.

The scene couldn`t be more impassioned thanks to the performance of Denholm Elliott, for far too long one of the English-speaking world`s most underrated actors. Here Elliott, though seeming to be a desperate man coming apart at the seams, portrays Mr. Emerson as a wailing voice of reason.

And, of course, when he pleads to Lucy and her chaperone about having the courage to take the room they want, he`s also begging Lucy to take the love she will want later on, the love of his son.

From that extraordinary scene on, ``A Room with a View,`` turns more directly into a traditional love story as young George Emerson pursues Lucy in Florence and, later, back in England.

``A Room with a View`` was Forster`s third novel, and the film is filled with the passion of a young writer decrying the incongruities and self-deceit of the nation in which he lives.

And at the same time, the social passion of the film is balanced with good humor and with that ripe love story. George aches for Lucy, who is engaged to the fussy Cecil Vyse (Daniel Day Lewis), whom she secretly considers a foppish fool.

And to the everlasting credit of Forster and to the makers of this movie, the direction in which the love story will turn is far less important than the behavior the film argues for: Have the courage to reach for what you want and to reject that which you don`t.

Come to think of it, ``A Room with a View`` is more than a great love story. It`s both a lighthearted and deeply impassioned inspirational lesson about life.